You would never buy a new refrigerator or washer/dryer if you spend any time reading online review.
The web is full of angry buyers venting about what they see as defective products and unresponsive retailers.
But we’re in the market for new appliances, so are seeking your feedback.
Here’s our shopping list and our concerns.
We’re attracted by the refrigerator models with the freezer on the bottom, and so called “French doors” above, without the ice/water dispenser in the door.
But I’ve read about problems with the door mechanism emerging after a few years.
And I read that the vegetable doors of many brands can’t be opened unless you open both upper doors. It sort of defeats the split-door theory, doesn’t it? In one attempt to compare brands, I found that Samsung seemed to be the only brand that didn’t require opening both doors in order to pull the right-hand vegetable drawer to an open position. But my search was far from exhaustive, so I would appreciate other feedback.
On the washer/dryer side, we’ve read great reviews of the current generation of high efficiency washers, but have also read sad tales from buyers who shout out that we should stay with the old, inefficient but proven technology without the new bells and whistles.
Again, we’re not sure what to think here.
So–long story short–do you have brands or models that you would recommend to shoppers? Or recommendations of what models, brands, or features we should stay away from?
Oh, and what about retailers? Where do you send friends when they’re on the market for appliances? What dealers do you warn them about? And if you’ve got recommendations, positive or negative, can you say a few words about the reasons? Thanks.
Thanks in advance for your help.
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All the advice so far sounds pretty right on. Samsung is the brand I recently settled on after much consideration. I think the best tip I can give is to buy in November to December, as the sales are incredible then.
i recently switched my appliance biz to Pacific Appliance Group at 650 Kohou St. Deal with Tracy Ng. Large selection of premium brands, competitive-to-lower prices with delivery and installation because no big showroom expenses on prime real estate.
2 years ago I got French door freezer on bottom LG refrigerator, most energy efficient model according to Consumer Reports. BUT I regret it; did not realize how SMALL the veggie drawers are; stupid SMALL MIDDLE drawer and LONG shallow drawer the width of the fridge — HAVE TO OPEN TWO DOORS in order to open those drawers in the middle. Impractical. But looks pretty.
I went the relatively cheap route. I bought an Admiral top-loader washer (supposedly built by Maytag) that has worked well enough for the last 5 or 6 years. But do yourself a favor & spend a little more to get the extras like 2nd rinse. I saved $100 but now wish I’d gotten the better one. Also, next time I will look for one that has an actual ‘slow’ gentle cycle. Not one that agitates rapidly for a few seconds & stops… .that’s not what I call ‘gentle’!
Home Depot (where I bought my Admiral) has fair prices sometimes; Sears has a scratch & dent warehouse that also has good deals sometimes. My fridge came from Best Buy, and my neighbor seems to like them for deals (maybe because they offered ‘no money down and no interest if paid in blah blah blah months” at the time, idk.) I use the nice windward wind for my dryer, so I don’t know about those.
French door refrigerator: Sears, because they had more of them & looking at them gave me an idea of what style I liked. I ended up not getting one, though. My current regular fridge hasn’t died yet, so I’ll wait.
I’m going to confess something my own family doesn’t know about me. When I have to buy an appliance, I subscribe to CR and make a spreadsheet with reports on the machines with best customer reviews on CR, Sears, Lowes and Best Buy sites.
Then I go looking for what’s in stock and buy the one that’s here, or will be soon, with the best reviews.
So far that method has served.
I love the suggestion from Andrew Cooper to choose appliances whose manuals are available online. Just replaced the burner units on our gas stove last month with that info, rather than buying a new stove as I was instructed by the appliance repair guy.
Discount Mutual does a great job if you know what you want. They are located in the warehouses next to the movies at Ward. You have to pay a delivery fee but it’s nominal, and the installers are always good.
Lowe’s has done a good job for me too when Discount Mutual was going to be a bit more of a wait than we could manage.
PS I go to this extreme to fight the idea that we should expect appliances to last only 6-8 years.